The show is juried, with 28 artists (18 men and 10 women) having been selected from a pool of over 400 candidates. Two Senegalese artists made the cut, Barkinado Bocoum et Papa Amadou Khoudia Tounkara dit « grand père ». The remaining artists come from 15 countries: 6 from South Africa; 3 from Nigeria; 2 each from Cote d’Ivoire and Morocco (+ Senegal); and 1 each from Algeria, Burundi, Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ile Maurice, Kenya, Madagascar, DR of Congo, Tunisia, and Zambia.

The range of art is stunning: paintings in oil, acrylics, and all sorts of mixed media; sculpture (again with all sorts of material); fabric and weaving; and lots of video. I’m no contemporary art maven. But I love to look, see, read titles and manifestos, look again, see some more (or try), reflect. But the video entries – all of them – left me in the dust (and not motivated to photograph, obviously). As Brian remarked, having done his share of puzzling over the videos of a choir of naked men singing a Shaker tune in Wolof and a woman dressed in white walking back and forth in front of an old building (and splits of herself), we really aren’t of the video generation.

And that’s just Dak’Art IN! Given the tight selection, Dak’Art OFF developed years ago as a parallel exhibit of those who didn’t make (or try to make) the cut. This movement has taken off, with the number of OFF exhibits vastly outnumbering the number of IN. They’re set in regular expo spaces, like the Institut Francais (renaming of the CCF) Galerie de Manege (where the photos to the left and right below were taken), as well as office buildings, commercial centers, and hotel lobbies.

In addition, maybe due to its outside status, Dak’Art OFF publishes an excellent catalogue of its expos and places huge green OFF signs at its sites, so that you can’t miss it and can easily include a daily exhibit as you go about your regular business around town. Our post-stadium concert outing to Ile N’gor included one, a work dinner out another, doing downtown errands still more, last weekend in St. Louis even more – the list goes on and on.

On balance, I liked more of the artwork that I saw in OFF exhibits than in the IN display at IFAN (Institut Fondamental d’Afrique Noir) Museum. But happily, Dak’Art 2010 got me off the dime and into this museum, a classic French colonial architectural legacy on the outside housing a classic French colonial anthropological legacy on the inside (most well known for its collection of West African masks). I didn’t explore it fully, but have put it on the to-do list for my next trip downtown.